Page 49 of Honey Bee Hearts

“Perfectly,” he laughs, but then his smile eases a little. “Sorry I haven’t brought you out here sooner,” he apologizes as he helps me finish zipping up my outfit. “I’ve been busy.”

“With the guy in the black car?” I ask.

He glances at me sharply. “That was nothing.”

“Sure seems like nothing,” I murmur but he clearly hears me. He doesn’t respond to it though.

“Okay, so,” he says instead, moving around the car. “What do you know about bees?”

“That they make honey?” I answer, grimacing.

He scoffs. “They do much more than make honey,” he starts, and thus begins Rhett Thomas’ lecture about the importance of bees in the world. And I gotta admit, it’s the sexiest thing about him.

“There are three types of bees in the hive,” he explains. “A queen, drones, and workers. The workers are always female. The drones are always male. They all have their own very specific jobs, depending on age and characteristics.” He walks me over to a hive. “Every hive has its own queen. She can live anywhere between a year to five. The workers only live about forty-five days, and the drones even less.”

“Why don’t the drones live very long?” I ask curiously as he starts to fog the nearest hive.

“Their only purpose is to have sex with the queen and make more bees,” he replies. “They literally die afterward. Penises explode.” He glances at me with a grin. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“I would never,” I laugh, leaning in as he points out different bees.

“Only the females can sting you. See this one here, this is a drone. He can’t sting you.” He moves his hand and opens up the hive. “And this here is the queen. She’s busy laying eggs. Her name is Bee-yonce.”

I snort. The bees buzz around us, dancing to and fro, going about their work. They ignore the two of us as we hover around their hive. “Bee-yonce?” I ask.

He nods and points to another hive. “I name all my queens. The one over there is Celine Bee-on. Suzan Bee Anthony is further down. My newest queen is named Bee-atrice.”

My laughter tumbles from my lips at each name. “Oh, top tier names,” I commend him. “You did an amazing job.”

He grins. “Well, I had to name my queens. They’re the only ladies I’ve ever been able to commit to,” he shrugs.

As if that isn’t the saddest thing he’s ever said.

My smile falls. “Rhett?—”

“Hey, so I have a question,” he interrupts as he starts pulling frames from the hives and placing them in the totes to take back to the ranch. He winces when he realizes he interrupted me. “Oh, go ahead.”

“No, you go ahead,” I encourage, wondering what he’d been about to say. I probably would have overstepped.

He nods and turns toward me. “So, when you made the reservation, you name was on there, but there was another name. We expected two.”

I freeze and he picks up on it, his eyes on me.

“Yes,” I finally say.

“Jinx Everhart,” he speaks, letting her name ring between us. His bright blue eyes watch me carefully. “Your sister?”

I clear my throat. “Best friends, but we changed our last names when we were twenty-one to match. Picked it out ourselves.”

“Damn straight we did,” Jinx’s voice echoes in my mind, but I don’t see where she’s at, the image that haunts me nowhere to be seen.

“We wanted something that sounded epic,” I add, my voice thicker than I’d like. How long has it been since I’ve talked about Jinx with anyone other than Dr. Julia? Since before the wreck probably.

“Job well done,” he nods. “It sounds like you belong in a fantasy novel.”

I laugh, my voice thick. “Yeah. That’s what Jinx always says. We were just waiting on our own adventure to start.”

He nods again as he starts working on pulling more frames out. I know he won’t take them all because the bees need honey to survive the winter. He’d already gone on a tangent about it on the ride out here. “Y’all sound close.” When I nod, he glances at me. “So why didn’t she come?”

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